


His Home

by Talesmaniac89



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Comforting Sam Winchester, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Hurt Sam Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, Low Self-Esteem, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Reader-Insert, Sad Sam Winchester, Sam Winchester is Not Okay, reader comforts sam winchester, sam winchester flangst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:54:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25896265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Talesmaniac89/pseuds/Talesmaniac89
Summary: Sam seeks forgiveness and comfort in the reader’s arms after a hard day.
Relationships: Sam Winchester/Reader, Sam Winchester/You
Comments: 3
Kudos: 42





	His Home

Sam had gone to bed earlier than you. 

He often did that on the bad days. Simultaneously seeking solace and holding court within the confines of his head in the safety of his room. When the bad days turned to painful evenings, where every smile looked painted and every laugh sounded hollow, you usually gave him a few minutes to just be alone. To collect his thoughts before following him into your shared room. 

Never wanting to be too far away when your heart was hurting. Because he was your heart as much as you were his, and when Sam Winchester was in pain, so were you.

That night was no different as you followed him to bed after saying goodnight to Dean. No words were spoken as you entered the bedroom and watched Sam from the doorway. His back rigid and straight on the bed as he looked at the ceiling. Treating the grey surface as a movie screen; a window into past hurts that pushed down on him and left him a motionless captive audience.

It had been one of the really bad days. 

It was always harder when he had to work directly with one of the people who had abused his kind heart, his demons, because in your eyes that was all they were. Human, angel, the devil, or literal demon alike.

They were the monsters who had taken a broken man and ground the pieces into dust for their own satisfaction. Just to watch it run through their fingers like the shattered remnants of an hourglass as they stole more of his precious time than he had left to give. 

Especially in the presence of those out to hurt his family and him, even if they had offered a momentary truce. Around them every minute ticked and clicked, like the bullets entering the chamber of a revolver.

Cases like your latest one were Sam’s Russian roulette, and you, you tried to be his shield against blanks and bullets alike. Both at night as he held onto you to keep from drowning, and during the day as he acted strong and unconcerned. 

Though you knew that every comment, every smile was like the flash of a camera, bringing a distorted polaroid image to mind. A reverse Kodak moment of a dark time in his life. Yet in Sam’s eyes he was the one in the wrong. The one who didn’t do enough.

Because unless the whole world was safe it was never enough for your Sam Winchester. The man who believed a hero saved all and didn’t stop until everyone had a happy ending. 

On nights like that Sam was choking. 

Unable to breathe past the burdens of his past as he carried sins and regrets on his back like Atlas carried the world. Unwilling to let go, or share the burden, even if it was slowly crushing him. Even if it kept him rooted to the spot as the tide came in and threatened to make a second Atlantis out of the man as he sank below a sea of unshed tears. Equipped with nothing but a pair of cement shoes crafted from the lives he’d been unable to save.

You knew, just as well as you knew your own heart, that it wasn’t words Sam needed. Not really. He needed you; he needed a guardian to watch over him and someone to hold him up and anchor him to the present. 

So, you didn’t speak as you crawled into bed, allowing Sam to turn on his side until your back fit perfectly against his chest and wrap his arms around you. Holding onto you with a deep, fierce need, as if you were both something to be protected and something that could protect him.

When the hurt came and the sun set Sam just needed to talk. To be forgiven for burdens he didn’t have to carry and past scars he had no reason to feel guilty for. To hold you close with your back against his heaving chest as he fought for every pained breath while confessing his imagined sins into the back of your neck. 

Burying his head in the layers of your (Y/H/C) hair and leaving it damp with a mix of blood soaked whispers of guiltless confessions and the defeated tears of a man who had played at being the sacrifice in a world that always demanded more for too long.

It wasn’t about the words, he didn’t need you to speak; to absolve him of sins he believed he carried no matter how many times you and others tried to convince him otherwise. No, he just wanted you to listen. To hear what he was carrying on his shaking shoulders. To act as the paper on which he etched his story. Your skin soaking it in where it was too much for him to carry. 

He didn’t need to hear from you that he was wrong to feel the way he did. Enough people already told him that his guilt was unnecessary, that he shouldn’t carry it, that none of the bullshit was his fault.

Deep down you were sure even Sam knew he was an innocent man. Wrongfully convicted and forced to carry the shackles of hurt and pain for actions beyond his control. Yet, he stayed at the gallows with the noose around his neck. 

The sacrificial lamb and his own executioner, falsely accused of pain inflicted both onto himself and to others. And you, you were his confessional, his saviour and the ground beneath his feet, keeping him from falling.

With his arms tightly wound around you and his long legs entangled with yours he would whisper truths and untruths into the dark bedroom air. Sam would speak, beg for forgiveness, to pay penance for old mistakes, and you would stay in his arms. Your own hands on top of his as he held you close enough that you could feel the echo of a shake in each breath he fought to draw. 

You would listen, and you would reassure both with words and with soft strokes of fingers against bare arms. Telling him that he was _good_ , that he was human. And that the greatest gift to humanity was that it was alright to make mistakes.

Though Sam didn’t always believe you, he needed your reassurance on nights like those. To know that, though he sought forgiveness and absolution, he didn’t need them from you. 

Even if your reassurance was the silent comfort of patterns painted on whitening knuckles or just whispered words of understanding. He wasn’t looking for you to forgive him for sins you believed him innocent of. Since the only one he really had to seek forgiveness from was himself on those nights.

Because he owed the world nothing, but he owed himself the world.

Just holding you made the hunter feel at ease. It loosened the thorny chains he normally carried, wound around his body, for a while as he let out some of his pain. Allowed himself to fall apart since he knew you were there to help pick up the pieces, or at least keep them from being crushed by new burdens until he was strong enough to once again pick them up himself.

Sure, Sam could share certain parts of his pain with his brother. Yet, he always kept the worst of it in. Triple locking the padlocks on his heart out of old childhood fears. 

He was still, after all those years, afraid to be a nuisance. Still too caught up in a past he had already defeated to clearly see through the haze of the ghosts he carried that he wasn’t that scared little boy anymore. He was no longer little Sammy, who worried his father would turn him away if he made life on the road too difficult.

Yet, the worst of it he only shared with you. Lying together and holding you close as he whispered of sins and doubts. Only offering up the deepest wounds in his heart to you and the darkened bedroom around you.

Like a child whispering its deepest secrets to a teddy bear in exchange for protection from the monsters in his closet, Sam would hold you close and share even the most bruised and battered parts of himself with you as you kept an eye out for the skeletons from his past. He would tell you his fears and you would cradle them in your arms. Softening the corners and lighting up the shadows to lift some of his burden.

Sam feared nothing more than he feared happiness. 

Because in his life the golden rule was that something bad always followed a happy moment. Something was there, waiting to drag him down into despair again. As if to punish him for his smiles. Making the bright man treat even a small moment of peace like it was as sinful as the forbidden fruit itself. Though, instead of nobody being allowed to take a bite, only he himself was withheld from the pleasure. A starving man in a sea of gluttons.

Sure, he would smile, but deep in those hazel eyes you could see him breaking. Like the very act of pulling the corners of his mouth up was pulling at his seams, chipping away pieces of him with every new attempt at happiness, real or not.

Even the idea of normalcy, of finding happiness and comfort with white picket fences, homemade pies and manicured lawns no longer cheered the weathered hunter up. What was a normal life and childhood for others was foreign to him. Something to be feared and desired, and most of all something he didn’t believe himself worthy of. 

Those moments with you, being just Sam. Not Sammy, the hunter, the recovered addict, the vessel or the victim… Those were the closest he ever got to normalcy and guiltless happiness, and he was ok with that. As long as you were.

Unlike his older brother, Sam couldn’t remember normal. 

He didn’t have memories of his mother’s comforting arms around him or her telling him that everything would be alright and that the angels were watching over him. So, you took on the role, carried the sword and shield for him and cradled his hopes and dreams in your arms. Not as a mother, but as a guardian angel. As his knight, his protector, his guiding light on darker days. 

You were the angel his mother had whispered about in a time before he could remember. And though he didn’t feel worthy of it, you embraced all of him, protected his heart and soul, imagined sins and all.

And so you held him and let him speak. Let him confess and be fragile for a while as you kept the demons and monsters at bay. Just listening to his confessions until the wounds stopped hurting and you could kiss them and fill them with love.

—

As the whispers stopped flowing from him and into your hair, and his arms lost some of their tight hold around your waist you turned in them to look into his eyes. The lack of light not keeping you from seeing how your image somehow looked like it was thrown back at you through fractals of glass in the broken soldier’s hazel eyes. Yet, where there had been only pain you saw hints of temporary peace. Of tired comfort, as he held onto you and put his forehead against yours.

“I’m ok,” Sam whispered the words into the darkness, trying to act strong as your hands lifted to push his soft hair out of his eyes to truly read his expression. ‘Ok’ was a lie you both told yourself. Merely an answer to an unspoken question that could never really have a sincere answer. 

‘Ok’ was a grey zone, a middle ground. The line to walk between falling to pieces and peaceful comfort. And ‘ok’, was never enough when you wanted to give the man in front of you the world.

Moving your forehead from his, you placed a soft kiss in its stead as a placeholder before lifting your arms until they enveloped his head and held him tight against your chest. So that the hunter could not only hear your words but feel the vibrations of them in time with your heartbeat. Your eyes shutting tight around tears you couldn’t cry for him, since he would only soak them up and carry them with the rest of his unwarranted guilt.

“I know you’re not, and that’s fine, you’re allowed to hurt Sam. We all are. Right now everything is shit, the world’s just a mirror image of hell, but we’ll make it better,” You whispered your words into his hair, keeping the shake of your voice at bay as you punctuated yours words with small kisses. 

“It’ll be hard going, but we’re not alone. We’ll have each other’s backs. Be each other’s guardian angels. And one day, it will be better. Maybe not perfect, but better,”

“I hope so,” Sam’s voice was small as his arms tightened around you and his hands curled into your t-shirt holding on for dear life. Like a kid holding onto his mother’s skirts when things seemed uncertain, new and scary. 

“I just… I hope so,” He sighed as he repeated himself. Pain and doubt clouding the good, hopeful man you knew he really was.

“Even if things aren’t perfect, or even slightly ok, we’ll always have each other. You’ll always have me,” You added, rocking the big guy back and forth in your arms as you rested your head on top of his. 

“And we’ll always have our dreams,”

“Unless you’re here, (Y/N), they’re always nightmares,” Sam sighed from somewhere within your embrace. His defeated voice tugging at your heart as you rested your head on top of his and held him close. 

It was your turn to embrace him now, to hold him together until there was nothing left between the two of you but good dreams and soft comfort. Sam’s nightmares were worse on nights when he’d dealt with one of the monsters that normally starred in them. And all you could was to try and overwrite them with a world of your own.

On evenings and nights like those he just needed you to convince him his dreams wouldn’t be filled with horrible flashbacks and black and white horror shows of the abuse life had handed the man in lieu of lemons. And so you would hold him. You would plan your dream’s destination like it was a vacation. Your voice soft and mild as you told Sam what would be painting the landscape in his dream whilst you watched over him to keep away the shadows.

“Where do you want to go tonight? Paris?” You asked Sam and the hints of childish imagination that you were sure still surrounded the young heart of the man you loved. A man who still held onto hope of finding the good in everyone but himself.

“No, I want it to be just us,” Sam buried his head in the crook of your neck as he waited for you to help him to decide on where his good dreams would take the two of you tonight. A place where he could be just Sam. A place without gallows or confessionals, where sin was magically absolved, and happiness wasn’t a rare find.

“Alright, then how about that clearing in the forest we found over near the Rocky’s?” Your murmured question brought a small tired smile to your lips as you remembered the near magical place you had found by chance after a hunt. 

The place where Sam had seemed like just a man, a good man, with no weight on his shoulders. The otherworldly place that somehow temporarily had shown you a Sam with no shadows staining his blinding light.

“Yeah I’d like that,” You could feel and hear his faint smile as his arms momentarily tightened around you and his breath tickled your neck.

“Sure, so we are in the clearing. It’s a beautiful day; sunny with not a cloud in the sky,” You closed your eyes, feeling Sam do the same as his eyelashes fluttered against the sensitive skin of your neck. 

“We can hear the birds, and sense the movement of small animals through the bushes in the distance as we put out a blanket and ready the picnic basket. I’ve made you all your favourites,”

“Brownies?” Sam asked as you responded to the food request with a chuckled confirmation.

The little comments continuing as you painted a picture of your picnic in the quiet forest clearing. He was like a kid listening to a fairy tale as he let you create his dream from the ground up. Never really adding to it, just curious comments about certain details and little wordless sounds of happiness that acted like a backing track to your spoken word lullaby.

Your dream worlds were always detailed, because Sam needed the details to sink into them. And so you spent the night whispering about sunsets and stargazing. About the warmth of the fire and the smell of the clean air that was free of sulfur or bad memories. 

Creating a space where he was free to be him. Just Sam.

“Thank you,” The mumbled words left your hunter as his smile softened and his arms lost some of their strength. Already hinting that he was one step ahead of you; waiting patiently for your arrival in the clearing with a picnic basket and a blanket.

Because though you were the steady ground, the protective walls, and the carpenter that created a space for him. To you he was the light and colour that filled it. Your love the air you both needed to breathe. And that clearing, the bedroom, and your arms around each other, that was your home.

In dreams and in reality, together you were always home. 


End file.
